I never watch the stars, there's so much down here

desperate-men-and-tyrants

This is worrying.

Merda: no longer in her bed!

Search-spell targeted on Merda, including lots of fancy routing: ...prison cell?

The Emperor's suite, common areas: .....crawling with mages, who seemed to be stationed ready for combat. Some of them he recognizes as Inquisitors.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

This is not a good sign at all.

It's possible he could resolve it by Gating in. He thinks he could manage a Gate over that distance and stay conscious; he would be able to explain.

...The issue is that Mage-Inquisitor Kastil is intensely paranoid. Rightly so - it's exactly what Altarrin wants out of the person doing his job - but it means he's likely to react to Altarrin (who's dead) Gating in with - well, paranoia. One of the better scenarios is that he knocks Altarrin out first, compulsions him to his teeth, and dumps him in a secure cell, and then asks questions.

(And the gods are at work, here - the plot that nearly got him killed and did get him off the gameboard for a couple of days came at least partially from inside his own Empire - Altarrin can already guess that luck is not going to be in his favor, whatever he does.)

Carissa is almost certainly in the Emperor's suite right now, and it very much looks like the Office of Inquiry intends to try to take her down (alive, hopefully) and asks questions after.

But, again. Luck is not going to run in Carissa's favor, here, is it.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

He can't fight his way to her and get her out, not against that many powerful and uninjured mages. He can't even expect to get a warning to her; they'll take him down before he reaches the Emperor's bedroom door.

He's not sure there are any winning options left, here.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

No. Think. It's not over yet - be creative - what constraints can he relax or drop here -

He could...try to reach Kastil with the communication-spell? But he expects Kastil to be paranoid about that, too – Altarrin would be in his shoes, and (he thinks fondly) Mage-Inquisitor Kastil is if anything more paranoid than he is. Altarrin doesn't really expect to be able to talk Kastil down that way, or even talk him into delaying a little. And it would give away the element of surprise.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

He could try to get a communication-spell to the Emperor.

But saying...what? They've never spoken directly about Carissa, not beyond the public-consumption cover story. Carissa may or may not have revealed even that her boy persona is the same person as Altarrin's woman; he never had a chance to discuss her plan in detail either.

There's a chance that contacting the Emperor for a negotiation will make things better, at minimal cost, and give him an opening to de-escalate this mess. There are a number of other ways it could make things much much worse.

(It would simplify a lot of things if he could contact Carissa directly. But the communication-spell only works with fellow mages, and - maybe, if he'd been thinking, he could have made time with Carissa to research a way for her to receive her end of it, modifying it to work with a Golarion spell or magic item - but he didn't do that. And now it's too late.)

Everything is so much more obvious in hindsight when you're about to die.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

- all right, preparatory step. He would really like to write a note for the Emperor - some kind of explanation, some kind of verification that he was alive and made his next choices of his own free will - but he doesn't know how long he has, and his hands aren't working.

Carissa will probably Teleport out as soon as anything scary happens, but it's hard to be sure of that. ...He's also not sure how often she bothers to cast the translation spell that lets her read. But seems worth taking two minutes, just in case she did.

He finds paper. ...Tries to hold the pen in his teeth. It turns out to be easier to use a wisp of mage-gift and burn the letters into the paper, shaky and uneven but legible.

CARISSA

IN DANGER SUSPECT FOR MY MURDER

ROOM SURROUNDED GET OUT NOW

desperate-men-and-tyrants

Altarrin manages to get the note pinned to his shirt.

He drags himself to one of the other crates. Digs out shield-talismans, four different varieties, fully charged. It almost certainly won't make a difference but he puts them on anyway.

He grits his teeth, and struggles up to his knees– no, it's not worth wasting his strength on something like walking. Gate-threshold under him so he falls through, is the way to go, it's slightly more energy but his reserves are in better shape than his legs.

- after a moment of thought, he does reach for the communication-spell focus that he left in reach earlier.

Deep breath. Later, when he (most likely) wakes up in a teenager's body hundreds of miles away, he's going to be very irritated with himself for ending up in a position to carry out this gamble. But he's here right now, and there's no point being distracted by regrets.

He closes his eyes, and builds a Gate-threshold.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

You are really really really not supposed to be able to Gate directly into the Emperor's bedroom, the one place where he's ever in private, out of sight and immediate reach of his guard.

Altarrin made those protections, and - blocking Gates entirely, in a robust way, is hard. The set-spell laid on the room disrupts the most efficient search-process-technique, the one taught in all schools in the Eastern Empire. Altarrin knows others.

It's still suicide. The countermeasures will trigger and probably kill him by themselves, and then the Emperor's guards will break down the door and finish him off while he's incapacitated, and he's in no shape to defend himself - thinks his condition might be deteriorating, actually, he's hot and cold in bursts and his burns are leaking purulent fluid through the badly-wrapped dressings.

But Carissa only needs a few seconds' warning to Teleport out, or turn invisible, or whatever she has planned (he's sure she has something planned.)

desperate-men-and-tyrants

With his end of the Gate-threshold up and solid, and the search-spell extended and touching but not quite landing, Altarrin reaches out with the communication-spell artifact. Routes, with some effort but less than for the Gate-search, around the shielding.

<Emperor Bastran this is Altarrin situation is not what it appears please stay calm>

This takes half a second and he doesn't wait for a response, just drops the spell and - completes the Gate.

desperate-men-and-tyrants

At which point, from Caris' perspective, the characteristic glow of a Gate appears from nowhere - horizontal, midair, circular - and then Altarrin, or apparently Altarrin, tumbles through, a note written in the language of the Eastern Empire pinned to him.

Well before he hits the ground, he is immediately hit by over a dozen different counterspells, some of them - like the underpowered levinbolts - visible to the naked eye.

He convulses in midair, lands hard on the rug, twitches and then is still.

abide-the-twin-damnation

That's sufficient, in a sense.

She can't read the note, but it seems unlikely to be a warning to sit still.

She has no idea what's going on. The Emperor looks as startled as she is. She's worried about both of them, and she's not the best person to protect either of them. ...so she Dimension Doors eight hundred feet straight up in the air and clear of the palace.

If you're on a planet with no afterlives, you need to never ever ever be in a fight you didn't pick, it's that simple.

abide-the-twin-damnation

She casts Feather Fall to stop herself from instantly falling right back down onto the palace, and then Fly (which is a much better spell, but can't be tossed off instantly), and then Invisibility, and then Nondetection, and then -

- not taking Altarrin along wasn't actually a conscious decision but probably it would also have been the wrong one, the man looked like he'd need medical attention -

- he's not dead, he's okay -

- what dropped him here now why -

It's - possible that this is just straightforwardly good news, that everything is fine and Altarrin is getting medical attention back at the palace and she just revealed a capability for no reason because she was startled.

It's also possible that wasn't Altarrin. Or that it was, and that he did that because something was seriously and urgently wrong. She couldn't read the note, but she has very high Intelligence, these days, she can make an illusion of it as best as she remembers it in front of her face and then put up Comprehend Languages and -

Yeah, okay.

abide-the-twin-damnation

Extremely fast failure analysis she was an idiot not to explicitly check with the Emperor that she was fine on that front - or would he have told her the truth - he doesn't actually seem to have spectacularly good Bluff but that's got to be an affectation, possibly along with everything else she thought was happening in the last few days -

- or she's just - missing something else - she's in this entire new world and she knew she was missing context - Altarrin has rivals, someone killed him and in some sense it was the gods but they act through people, here, usually - is he in fact safely getting medical attention or did he throw himself into great danger just to warn her of -

- he would, is the thing, because she can die and he can't and he's the only person in the Empire who'd make that trade for that reason but she actually thinks he would -

way-of-the-law

The imperial guard bursts in instantaneously, followed a few moments later by the inquisitors. The guards hit Altarrin with paralysis spells and Compulsions to do nothing do not move do not defend yourself do nothing on general purposes, because he's someone in the imperial chambers who isn't the Emperor and therefore might be suspicious, simultaneous with other guards raising a really improbable numbers of shields around the Emperor.

The Inquisition a moment later considers Altarrin "a person other than the Emperor" and when Kastil snaps "Fish purple mask" Phase One hits, because clobbering the suspiciously not dead Altarrin with every nonlethal weapon available to the Inquisition is something you can recover from, and failing to clobber the shapeshifter is not.

Kastil is already casting Phase Two, before he sees if Phase One landed or not. The shapeshifter not being in a room with the Emperor is important.

Emperor Bastran

stale-to-wonder

The Emperor wakes from a sound sleep to the touch of a communication-spell.

...He does have combat-training, but it's been years, and he is not yet processing especially until half a second has passed.

<is not what it appears please stay calm>

The communication-spell conveys much less "flavor" of its sender's mind than true Mindspeech. It conveys some, though, especially if both mages involved are very, very skillful with it. And different varieties of the spell also register differently, to someone with the training to notice such subtle shifts. All of the Emperor's personal guard can get a communication-spell through his bedroom shielding. They are compulsioned against ever teaching it to anyone else, and they were taught a short-range version.

The Emperor recognizes the flavor of this variety. It's not the one his guards use. It's the long-range variant on it. Bastran knows it. He could count the number of others who (officially) do on the fingers of one hand. Altarrin is one of them. And Bastran has exchanged a dozen hours of communication-spell messages with his Archmage-General. He is - moderately - confident he knows that is who it was.

All of these thoughts are crammed into the remaining fraction of a second before a Gate-terminus snaps up from nowhere, horizontal in midair, and that shouldn't be possible but if anyone could do it, it's Altarrin - and, indeed, it's Altarrin who falls through.

The Emperor's mage-sight is already open. He raises a hand to try to shield his Archmage-General his friend and doesn't quite, actually, have time – what's happening –

He doesn't have time to reach for Caris but he can sense his lover's life-force and starts to throw a shield over him and then Caris is - gone, some otherworldly magic -

And then, unsurprisingly, his personal guard bursts through the door and hits Altarrin's unconscious body with a pile of other spells.

Things are happening too fast. He opens his mouth to - he doesn’t even know what to say yet, they’re flinging shields over him and Altarrin is unconscious and maybe dying on the floor after his impossible Gate and Caris is gone.

At which point a second set of mages burst into his bedroom, and it’s not until they’re hitting his Archmage-General with a dozen other spells that would theoretically be non-lethal if he weren’t VERY OBVIOUSLY incapacitated, unconscious and maybe dying - that he recognizes the uniforms.

He manages a strangled yell of “STOP!” but it’s too late, someone not in view is casting a Gate, under Altarrin’s limp body, and he’s falling through, and Bastran does not actually have time to orient enough to say words before it’s all over.

What.

WHAT.

Why isn’t Caris here

Another few seconds slide past before Bastran pieces together that this is an Office of Inquiry operation and - if he’s judged the man right - then Mage-Inquisitor Kastil is nearby.

The Emperor…does not even have a shadow of a hypothesis for why…this…but he aims a communication-spell at him. A rarely-known variant, short range but unusually hard to intercept.

<Explain?>

way-of-the-law

<Code Purple Tiger>

(Which translates to "you and an unknown number of other important people are under mind control and I am loyal to your goals but suspect you may not be in your right mind.")

<Request unambiguous identification, Your Supremacy>

(Which is the wrong honorific to use but someone from another country might not be picking that up if she hasn't had time to Thoughtsense him.)

And, to some of his mages, <Confirm that this is the emperor> SHAPESHIFTER. (He's running the same scans, himself, to make sure that the sole compulsion on the Emperor is distinct one to Serve The Empire that nobody else has phrased quite the same.) Others are looking for Carissa, who might after all have gotten away before they burst in.

Emperor Bastran

stale-to-wonder

.....

- all right, he– now that he's thinking through it he can...maybe see how they got there. And this is the Mage-Inquisitor's job, to be paranoid when no one else is remembering to be, so Bastran is in fact willing to cooperate. Check external shields on him, first, with mage-sight – the Inquisitors should have a Thoughtsenser inside a set of shields that block Thoughtsensing, and nobody else inside it – and then, with a brief mental wince and sight, he takes off his Thoughtsensing talisman, and - doesn't entirely lower, but opens a crack in, his native shields. It's the quickest way to check.

(He is, to be clear, not removing any of his other talismans or shields. No one is going to be able to get in to modify his compulsions, or do anything else to his mind, and he's not opening his shields wide enough to allow a strong Thoughtsenser to stun him via a Mindspeech blow.)

- he's thinking that he's so confused. It's not accurate to say he has no idea what's going on, and - there's a reason the Office of Inquiry has the authorization to run their investigations without keeping the Emperor updated. Altarrin explained those reasons to him, once - Altarrin approves of Mage-Inquisitor Kastil, he thinks, doesn't think like him or agree with him on all matters but is glad that he's the person doing his particular role -

He's scared, but mostly not for his own safety. There hasn't been time for that. He's terrified for Altarrin, who might be dying, who just got attacked by the Inquisitors seconds after getting hit by every single countermeasure against invaders to the Emperor's suite– ...honestly he still doesn't have a hypothesis for what's going on, and it's belatedly occurring to him that it might not have been Altarrin, though it wasn't an illusion so that would require a second person in Velgarth with Caris' abilities.

...They might not have smashed down the door in time to see this, but Bastran is very sure that Caris was still next to him when the Gate-signature appeared. He holds up the memory of it. And the fact that he is pretty sure that Altarrin conveyed a message to him (memory of it presented) before, albeit a second or two before, the Gate. And then Caris vanished, presumably via some application of Golarion wizardry.

(- Caris - he's afraid for his lover as well, but much less so than Altarrin, Caris has repeatedly demonstrated his competence it's so hot and also wasn't just nearly murdered - his top theory is that Altarrin's Gate out got thrown off course, somehow, and he's been lying nearly dead in the wilderness somewhere for the last two days, and somehow managed a Gate back - no, that still doesn't explain why he came to the Emperor's suite, he knew the countermeasures would potentially kill him, though in hindsight it's somehow not surprising that Altarrin might be able to get around the Gate-block...)

The Emperor's compulsion is untouched. His thoughts are characteristic of him.

He waits ten seconds to let them check, but he's kind of desperately impatient here. <Did you send a Healer for Altarrin - he was hurt, he might've been hurt even before he...Gated in here...>

way-of-the-law

Kastil is now fairly confident this is the Emperor.

He is not confident that the Emperor's memories of the precise sequence of events are valid, though that's mostly just because decades of service have told him that truthful eyewitness testimony is terrible. But while Caris might be in their cell, he might also be in the wind.

<Dispatching now>, he says, giving the orders. They don't have a Healer ready to go, but they can get ahold of someone politically uninformed for the purpose. They'll have to imprison the healer afterwards, of course, until they can be sure he hasn't been impersonated, but the Emperor is right that sending one is the correct decision.

<Known items for a search?> He's aiming this at the Emperor's guards - any of them know the magical signature of Caris's equipment well enough to scry for it? He certainly doesn't.

And, back to the Emperor, kneeling, <Your majesty, I beg your pardon for this interruption. You have been seduced by a shapeshifter who privately claims to be from a nation worshipping a 'god of torture' who persuaded you to wear a mind-altering talisman and has details-unknown other mind-affecting magical abilities including Thoughtsensing. I suspect she may have suborned Altarrin and possibly killed him. I do not know who his impersonator was, though I suspect her or a confederate.>

One of the Inquisitors will, in fact, read the note, and forward it to Kastil.

Emperor Bastran

stale-to-wonder

...The Emperor is more dubious of that.

It's a reasonable conclusion given a certain subset of the information. It's - not his conclusion. Though he could just be wrong. The Emperor is, in fact, holding some humility here – if he were subtly mind-controlled, it might feel like this from the inside.

(At this point, if he has acknowledgement that his identity has been sufficiently unambiguously verified for the Code Purple Tiger protocol, he's going to put his talisman back. Years of being at court, being Emperor - and, significantly, working with Altarrin - have meant that he gets an itchy feeling when his mind is unshielded.)

(From the Emperor's guards: Caris....didn't visibly wear mage-artifacts? They are trying to be helpful but they have no idea what's going on here.)

abide-the-twin-damnation

She's not actually safe yet. A Thoughtsenser could find her, if they thought to scan up. She could Teleport for the location Altarrin gave her, except for how it's known to Altarrin who may now be in enemy hands. She can Teleport farther up into the sky, hide in a Rope Trick dangling at a height local magic can't reach, the only downside the distinct possibility that this is leaving Altarrin to die.

- he'd come back, she wouldn't, they both agree that that's an acceptable trade if it's necessary -

- but on the other hand this was wildly out of context and she's not sure she can protect herself indefinitely without either Altarrin or the Empire on her side -

What minimizes the odds of her death in the next ten years is not necessarily what minimizes it in the next ten minutes. In fact, probably what minimizes her odds of death in the next ten years is having the ability to operate within the Empire, and having Altarrin, and most ways of getting that involve incurring some frankly unacceptably high risks right now. But that's the entire point of not being a coward, right, that you can walk into danger that minimizes long-term danger -

She keeps her notes and Carissa's important possessions which Caris can't wear in a Rope Trick in her shielded work room. Hopefully even if people search it (and she's sure some of them have tried) they aren't looking for extradimensional spaces tucked behind one of the filing cabinets. Of course, if this is a move against her, her shielded work room is almost certainly under surveillance, but - there's some stuff there she can't afford to leave behind. Second Dimension Door to the shielded work room. If they've set up the right alarms against her, that'll set those off, but she's here only long enough to dismiss her Rope Trick with a thought and scoop the Thoughtsensing talisman and a bag of spellsilver and all her notes off the floor -

- and now, she thinks, local magic as far as she's witnessed it or been told of it just can't find her, at least not if she stays on the move. Altarrin's the only one who has gotten a close look at the headband. Invisibility doesn't have a local equivalent. Nondetection covers the traces mage-sight picks up off living things. Altarrin's talismans don't just make the mind shielded, but absent, like there's no one there to read. Of course, in the long run she'll need to ditch the talisman, though it's safer to have it than not while she's here in Thoughtsensing range. And if she casts spells those will be visible to mage-sight, so she'll have to be careful not to be in any mages' field of view (and remember that the spells might show to past-watching).

Detect Thoughts. Won't work on most mages but sometimes you get lucky.

And of course, you could still find her by literally throwing some flour in the air.

Third Dimension Door to just outside the Emperor's chambers.

Gaseous Form.

It has been just under a minute and she would like to know what's going on.

way-of-the-law

What is going on is a conversation via magical messages! The inquisitorial mages have spread out somewhat, looking for her without success, but they're maintaining tight discipline so as to be hard to ambush.

<I can provide a full summary once you are safe, Your Majesty,> since getting him to Maximum Safety is the priority of the Guard, though some of them are of course also looking for intruders or other assassination attempts.